Animal Love, Loading Dock Gallery’s April show, celebrates animals familiar and wild. Work ranges from abstracted to representational, and includes photography, sculpture, and collage. Animals mean so much to so many. Intelligent, resourceful, animals are our guides, teachers, and friends in this world.

Tracy Allegro combines collage and paint in playful scenes. Nancy Blasi emphasizes birds as friends and messengers. Nancy Bates Dapkiewicz’s photography records intimate, unstaged moments. Paintings by Linda Dunn and Nancy Zacks emphasize connection to animals as our companions. Laurie Simko’s new abstract representational collage series present visual narratives graceful and serene. Whimsical sculpture and mosaics by Laurie Beth Mangili-Gaines complete the show.

Animal Love runs March 30-May 1, at Loading Dock Gallery, 122 Western Avenue, Lowell, MA.  Open noon-5:30pm, Wednesday-Saturday; noon-4pm Sundays. Reception 3-5pm, Saturday, April 2. Loading Dock Gallery is part of Loading Dock Arts, Inc., a 501c3. For details, visit www.theloadingdockgallery.com.